


Appreciation

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:14:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Even after being ‘kissed’ and burned by the Dragon, Dr. Frederick continues to be visited by Solignato’s ghost in the hospital, being urged to live the life Solignato never did...even if it means embracing the darker half of Frederick's self.
Relationships: Bedelia Du Maurier/Hannibal Lecter, Dr. Frederick Chilton/Francis Dolarhyde, Dr. Frederick Chilton/Solignato, Dr. Frederick Chilton/Will Graham, Solignato/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 3





	Appreciation

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place while Frederick Chilton is in the hospital, getting skin grafts. I don’t own Hannibal but for over a year it has owned me.

Trapped in a hospital bed, Frederick continued to dream of Solignato Riccardo. He had his skin back. Riccardo still had the ice pick in the side of his head. Perhaps he’d forgotten it was there. Frederick had to remind himself to pat his face every once in a while, to make certain his skin stayed on. 

The two of them watched a young man and woman; the confident sway of their hips, the sideways glances they shot each. 

“I never appreciated life when I was alive.” Riccardo gazed down at his espresso with a melancholy expression. “I’m not appreciating my death either.” 

“Don’t expect to change,” Frederick said with some bitterness. “You’re dead now so you can’t.”

“Do you know what bothers me the most about that? My killer enjoyed life. He enjoyed killing me more than I’ve enjoyed anything.” For a moment the blood stopped tricking down Riccardo’s cheek, frozen in place. As if the revelation had stopped the flow. The flow had already stopped. Riccardo’s corpse couldn’t still be bleeding wherever it was hidden. “When I first saw him, he was ridiculously handsome in his tuxedo, whirling his beautiful wife across the floor. When he recited Dante, it was with greater passion than I ever had for Dante. For Dante!”

Riccardo clenched his hands into fists before reaching up to pull the ice pick out of his head. “I think the greatest passion I’ve ever felt is hatred for him. I hated Dr. Fell with all of my dry arid heart, not that I had much to give. No wonder he didn’t even bother eating mine.”

There was something so pitiful about this post-mortem bitterness. “Riccardo, everything about Dr. Fell was a lie, particularly his name.”

“Was it?” Riccardo turned with dark, desperate eyes, the ice pick in his hand. He offered it to Frederick as if it were a sword he was surrendering. “Don’t let passion pass you by, Frederick. No matter how dark it seems, embrace it.”

For a moment Frederick felt the hot breath of Francis Dolarhyde upon his neck, raising hairs which were no longer there. 

“Most of my skin has been burned off.” He gazed down at the shining implement, tipped with blood. “I no longer have lips in the waking world. Hannibal Lecter took my face once. Now his bright little protégé destroyed the rest.”

“You burned, yes. To experience passion means to be engulfed in flame.” Riccardo gazed at him without blinking. “You’ve already lived with a vibrance I never achieved, even in death.”

“I cried.” Frederick shivered, thinking of that man towering over him, his very presence making him tremble. Abel Gideon had been the worst experience of his life until he met Miriam Lass. Miriam had been the worst experience until the Great Red Dragon, yet he couldn’t forget the feeling when the man came at him with those teeth. Terrifying, worse than anything, worse than Miriam and Abel put together, yet somehow there had been a raw excitement in the terror, a feeling of being alive as he’d never lived before. Yes, there had been awe. The Dragon had taken his due. “I was more vulnerable with him than when I was drugged and disembowled, more so than when I was shot in the face and yet…” Frederick raised his hands to press them against his face. “Why can’t I simply hate him like I did Abel and Miriam? Why do I want to…possess him, claim him, smother myself in his power and drink it?”

An ugly confession, yet it was the truth. This was simply a loss of power and a reaction to him. Dr. Frederick Chilton would learn to deal with it as he’d dealt with the rest of the trauma he’d been forced to cope with for the last three years. 

Ever since he’d first laid eyes on Will Graham. He’d been acquainted with Dr. Hannibal Lecter for years, been colleagues with him, had dinner with him. Bile rose from his throat as he thought of the tongue on his plate, Hannibal’s joke about eating his tongue. Hannibal might have been a monster, but he’d been a dormant monster until Will Graham crossed his path, tantalizing him into doing more. 

Abel Gideon might be the consequences of his own actions but would Abel have doubted himself, would Dr. Frederick Chilton have doubted himself if Will Graham hadn’t inspired the doubt? The Chesapeake Ripper didn’t start killing again until after he’d met Will Graham. 

“He did this to me,” Frederick whispered. “Lured me in with his bright eyes and seductive words the way he does any of the killers he invites into his head.”

“Your passion is growing, Frederick. Transforming into something which could revitalize you.” Solignato thrust the ice pick closer. “Don’t deny it because it frightens you.”

Frederick reached out to accept the weapon, for that’s exactly what it was. That was what anything could be, including dreams and words. 

He opened his eyes, awakened to pain once more, and let out a harsh cackling laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with the name Riccardo for Solignato when I couldn't find out his name in the canon...


End file.
